REVIEW: Phantom Thread [2017]

You found me. I’m not sure there’s a better director working today than Paul Thomas Anderson. I don’t say this as a long-time fan that calls Magnolia his favorite film of all-time. I say it as someone who’s watched his career expand and evolve in orchestration, aesthetic, tone, and performance. There’s an air about his art that demands revisiting for introspective ruminations and profound revelations. It’s almost as though he creates these works for them to be dissected into their hybridized genres, dramatic gravitas, and historical eccentricities. But just as…

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REVIEW: Future ’38 [2017]

Watch this classified film strip briefing. If you ask how scientists are smart enough to invent time travel yet can’t find a way to defeat Hitler without needing time travel to augment their weapon’s power, Jamie Greenberg has succeeded. He’s succeeded if you don’t ask that question too because you’ll have given yourself fully to his unapologetically punny, “lost” film known as Future ’38. So Greenberg can’t lose. His film entertains with overt playfulness and reveals the pedants in the audience unable to simply laugh and have a good time…

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REVIEW: Call Me By Your Name [2017]

‘Cause I wanted you to know. It wasn’t until three-quarters of the way through Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name that I finally began to understand the almost universal praise bestowed upon it since debuting at Sundance. Up until then it merely felt like a familiar coming-of-age film wherein the teenager in question was embracing his sexuality with the help of both a young woman his age and man a ten years older. The awkwardness, brazenness, and desire were all there along with the urge to never stop once…

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REVIEW: Their Finest [2017]

Authenticity, optimism, and a dog. As the Blitz raged and British soldiers continued to pour into Europe to try and push the Germans back, those left at home to take cover during air raids and do their part in factories still needed something to keep morale high when it all looked so futile. One such avenue was the movies currently run out of the Ministry of Information as the government sought to ensure the general public experienced only stories that provided hope. Being that you can only make so many…

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REVIEW: The Shape of Water [2017]

We’re all alone. Leave it to Guillermo del Toro to create an adult fantasy in the vein of Beauty and the Beast wherein there is no “beauty,” only the “other.” It’s one thing to read or watch a tale of overcoming the odds as a child with a specimen of perfection finding it in his/her heart to give a “monster” love, but such utopic vision is too reductive to the mind of someone who has experienced the difficulties of living in a world built on advancement and superiority. Kids are…

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REVIEW: Thelma [2017]

Jesus Satan. The moment you leave home for college is the moment your parents say, “Have fun, but don’t lose who you are in the process.” It’s a worthwhile sentiment that we often take for granted as an implicit notion that we are who we will remain despite embarking on a journey full of unknown responsibilities, freedoms, and dangers. How can we truly know our identity when we’ve yet to cultivate one on our own? How much of that “who you are” is actually “who we want you to be”…

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REVIEW: Porto [2017]

You never know if what you’ve lost is better than what you’ve gained. An American ex-pat reminisces about lost love, his walk through the Portuguese town of Porto leading to the café window of an old late-night conversation conducted with absolute honesty, vulnerability, and empathy. His hair is grayed, the time between widescreen past and boxed present (the latter shot on Super 8 rather than the former) ten to twenty years. He’s distraught, complacent, and lecherously pathetic when the emotions of memory take hold of a body long since changed.…

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REVIEW: The Room [2003]

Did you know chocolate is the symbol of love? I didn’t think it could be this bad. How’s it possible? How could the hype not prove hyperbolic? How could there not be one redeeming aspect in the entirety of Tommy Wiseau‘s vision? But then you watch and discover it’s true. The Room is quite possibly the worst movie ever made and people still watch it. That’s why “ever” tracks—we haven’t just dismissed it outright and stopped giving its creator credence. Instead the general public has fueled his yearning for fame…

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REVIEW: Princess Cyd [2017]

You get to see where your mom came from. Tragedies are never isolated incidents with a single victim, perpetrator, and survivor left to remember (or forget) what happened. Oftentimes those roles expand to encompass multiple parties or even overlap in ways that let blame, hate, and forgiveness coexist. This scenario is only rendered truer when it comes to a family ordeal, when those now gone leave a permanent void never to be filled again. And while we cope for a time—telling ourselves we’ve gotten over what happened to the point…

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REVIEW: The Mountain Between Us [2017]

“What kind of cookies?” Love is a powerful force. Surviving sub-zero temperatures without any food powerful, though? Is love that strong? My instinct automatically says no, but author Charles Martin may be working to prove that my gut simply isn’t as on point as those of his would-be survivors Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) and Dr. Ben Bass (Idris Elba). He’s going to try and roll the dice in such a way that empathy and selflessness shine above blind luck for no other purpose than his story needing it to feign…

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TIFF17 REVIEW: Disobedience [2018]

“We must then choose the tangled lives we live” It starts with a London-based rabbi speaking from his heart about the complexities of life. He stammers through—obviously ailing—until collapse. Suddenly we’re in New York City watching a photographer in-session with tattooed seniors. The phone rings and we know. She (Rachel Weisz‘s Ronit Krushka) is the daughter of that rabbi and he has passed away. The assumption is that both these worlds will subsequently collide in reunion. Tears will be shed and hugs had. But that’s not quite the case with…

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